The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Better Call Saul’ Season 6, Episode 7 Recap

Episode Date: May 26, 2022

Ben and Joanna start their analysis of the midseason finale of ‘Better Call Saul’ by comparing the storytelling methods of this show to those in ‘Breaking Bad’ and discussing Lalo's long spying sequence in the intro. They then go over every angle of Howard's tragic death scene, including Jimmy and Kim's excitement about the execution of their scheme, Howard's character development leading up to his demise, and the similarities in the way Chuck was eliminated earlier in the series (16:44). Finally, they discuss the purpose of Howard's death in regards to the overall ‘Breaking Bad’ universe and speculate on Jimmy and Kim's future heading into the end of the series (38:18). Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Ben Lindbergh Producer: Chris Sutton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, guys, Rachel Lindsay here, and I am teaming up with your favorite Ringer podcasters to deliver the Bravo drama and news that you've been craving on Morally Corrupt. It's the show about all things Bravo. From the Housewives to Summer House and everything in between, we'll be mentioning it all every week. Check it out on Spotify and the ringer.com. How he switched them. Howard? No, Jimmy, he snuck in somehow, and these are not the pictures I saw.

Mr. Hamlin. Are you all right? Your eyes? I am fine. I know he swamped those numbers. I knew it was 1216. One after Magna Carta, as if I could ever make such a mistake. Never. Never. I just couldn't prove it.

You think this is bad. This, this chicanery, he's done worse. He defecated through a sunroof. You get off on it. You're like Leopold and Loeb. Two sociopaths. That's enough. Oh, you know it's true.

You've got the guts to admit it. Great. you need to go. I'm going to make it clear to everyone because I'm going to dedicate my life to making sure that everybody knows the truth. Believe it. You can't hide who you really are forever. Welcome back into the Prestige TV podcast feed. I'm Joanna Robinson and joining me here to light a candle and say a few kind words for Howard Hamlin. It's Ben Lindbergh. Hi, Ben. You asked me after episode three if I was shattered because Peter Gold had promised that that episode would be shattering. I think I'm more shattered now.

We have a lot to talk about. Even more shatterder than before. All right. So we're here to talk about the mid-season finale of Better Call Saul, which, as we'll talk about in a second, was not ever supposed to be a mid-season finale. So we'll talk about that. But I just, you know, before we getting into all of that, press TV podcast feed. I don't know if you ever heard of it before, but this is the feed that you're on.

And there's a lot of great shows on here. There's Sean Fennacy talking about Barry. Every week with Bill Hader. What a treat. There's Charles Holmes and Van Lathen talking about Atlanta. There's a great crew of people talking about we own the city. And then I can announce here officially that in a couple weeks, there's going to be some regular Westworld coverage on this feed hosted by yourself

and some other folks. So it's a good feed to be on. Stick around. We'll be here. And hopefully, Ben and I don't know. Yeah, but Ben and I don't know if we'll be back for part two of Better Callsall. We hope so. There's a lot of content coming.

out and we would like love to cover the back half of the season but but we will see your representatives make your voice is heard exactly so that back half is starting july 11th the final six episodes so this is the long split but not as long as some season splits between season six episode seven plan and execution written and directed by tom schnaws and whatever's coming next in the end game tom schnauz also wrote in Bad Choice Road, the episode with the first Lalo, Jimmy, Kim confrontation. Can we just build the whole series out of Tom Schnau's scenes where Lalo comes to Kim and Jimmy's apartment? Because it doesn't get much better than those. I would watch the next six episode, just the three of them in that apartment. With like Howard's moldering corpse, you know.

So yes, a spoiler alert for season six, episode seven, Howard Amlin dies. I want to talk about a few sort of bigger picture thing before we get into the episode. We got a ton of great email. else for you guys this week. The emails are getting like longer and longer and more thoughtful and I really love everyone's insight into the show so much. But one request we got from a couple people was for us to sort of respond to the conversation that Chris and Andy had on on the watch, which is something we do every week on the show. And so I want to say a couple things. Ben and I are in a tremendous advantage because we get to do this podcast on a Wednesday, which means we get to listen to Chris and Andy's smart takes. We get to listen to the Breaking Bad Insider podcast.

We get to read all the Reddit theories. We get to read your beautiful emails. So when we come here, we've had a couple days to digest an episode. We've been soaking in the discourse. Yeah, exactly. And so Chris and Andy, I think they had a lot of great takes. And then I think, you know, there are some things that I don't agree with. But one thing that they were at a disadvantage to that is that they didn't know that, you know, Tom Schnau's tweeted out this information that this was never supposed to be a midseason finale.

It's just because the final season was split. I believe because of COVID and probably Bob Odenkirk's health. The season had to be split. They had to put half the season here. He didn't say this, but it's so that they could be an Emmy contention, right? They had to premiere here and then the other split. They chose to split it here, which is a very dramatic place to split it for sure. But it was never like, we got to leave them hanging in a big major way in this midseason finale.

We got to kill Howard to satisfy sweep's week. Exactly, exactly. So, Ben, like, knowing that, how does that impact the way in which you think about this finale? And even like this, we've been thinking about this half of the season, will this be one arc and the other half be another arc? But it seems clear that's not the case. Like, what do you think with that Tom Schnaus information? It's nice to know that this was an organic storytelling choice, that it wasn't something imposed, that it wasn't rushed or that they had to drum up some extra drama. And I think it worked that way, right?

Like if you just want to have something big happen in your mid-season finale before you leave people hanging for several weeks, this would be a pretty decent way to go out. Bad way to go out for Howard. Good way to go out for the show. Yeah. But I think it's sort of a natural hinge, I think, is the word that Peter Gold used for this season and for the rest of the series at this point. Because really, there's going to be a before and after Howard, right? This was a major, major moment, I think, for us as viewers and for our protagonists here. if we can still call them protagonists at this point, which we will probably discuss.

So I think it makes sense that this is going to accelerate whatever happens in the rest of the season. Maybe there will be a time jump at some point, but there's going to have to be some dealing with and reckoning with the consequences of Howard's death, of the unintended consequence of D-Day. I think that another thing that comes from this being a split final season, the way that Breaking Bad is a split final season is that we can't, help but compare the two, what was happening right up to the end of the midseason of Breaking Bad's final season versus what's coming up, what's happening here. And there's some really interesting

comparisons, which we'll get into later. But something that I thought was really interesting listening to Andy talk about the split seasons or the momentum of Breaking Bad's final season, is he was talking about how it felt like a pure adrenaline ride for him watching Breaking Bad's final season. And Saul, as Chris pointed out, Saul has always been a slower show. Like, that's just the case of what they're doing here. But I think what's also true, and I'm not, I'm not going to presume to speak to Andy's state of mind, but I think for all of us watching Breaking Bad's final season, it was a different experience because it was a massive cultural event, the way that Thrones turned into. So like that, like, Breaking Bad became this massive show. Everyone I knew was watching it.

The, like, memes were out of control, like everything, you know, all the hype around it. Saul has never been as big as Breaking Bad was at the end. And so it's just a quieter conversation. I think for me at least, I think there was that external meta-adrenaline. Actually, I still found this episode very thrilling and I was like sweating and grasping onto things. But I mean, I think overall, you know, you and I talked about this, the two episodes previous to this one, how we were like, okay, what's happening? What are we doing? What's going on?

Like, do you have any sense of that external adrenaline, that meta-adrenaline versus internal? story telling adrenaline? Yeah, I mean, I think if we were to go back and watch Breaking Bad and I haven't done a full rewatch recently and I doubt Andy has, but if we were, I'm sure there'd be some slack scenes here or there that maybe we don't remember quite as much because we remember the high points and we think of it as all high points, but perhaps we're glossing over some stuff, which Chris brought up, right? Lots of torture, lots of white power people. So it wasn't all highs necessarily. In Saul, yeah, I think the pace is slower and I think we are missing that kind of water cooler conversation to the extent that people are still around watercoolers in the

work from home era. But I mean, we're pretty plugged into the Saul speculation online community, I guess. And so we have found that enclave of people who are obsessed with Saul and who are constantly talking about Saul. But you're not necessarily running into it in the wild the way that you would have Breaking Bad. And I do think that kind of colors how you watch and how you receive these episodes. And I wondered whether that would be in play for the final season here, whether it could potentially take off the way that Breaking Bad did. It's just such a different media environment now. You know, I mean, even just this week, right, we have this huge episode on Saul and everyone is thinking about Top Gun or thinking about Stranger Things or thinking about

Obi-One, there's just so much TV right now. I don't think that anyone thing can break through necessarily the way that Breaking Bad did, even though we had a couple of year layoff where in theory people could have caught up. Maybe it wasn't as easily streamable as Breaking Bad was at the time. But I wondered whether that was in play. And it doesn't seem to have taken off to that sort of stratosphere. I mean, people are watching Better Calls Solid. People are liking it and people are talking about it. It's not all-consuming, all-encompassing the way that that show did. People aren't like dressing up as Jimmy and Kim for Halloween or whatever. Yeah, right.

And, you know, if you didn't watch this one the night that it aired, you might get spoiled and you might not be happy about it. Some of these saw episodes in the final season. It's like, you know, you could watch the next day. You'd probably be okay, right? And maybe Breaking Bad didn't feel that way because you were just inevitably going to encounter some conversation about it. I don't think that means that this show is any lesser necessarily.

No. But it does affect the experience of. of watching it in that communal way. Yeah, that's all I mean about that sort of like adrenaline. And I will say it. So the meta-conversation for me around this episode is that I did not have a screener. You haven't had a screener all season. I did not have a screener for this episode.

Chris Ryan texted me at the end of last week being like, well, I didn't see that coming. And I just did not respond to him. And then Monday night, I had family in town for dinner. And I left dinner to come home and did not look at any social media. so that I could watch the episode and try to just have that experience for myself. Got your priority straight. That being said, I'm less precious about spoilers than other people. And so something I will say is that actually watching this episode, if you listen to the

entirety of our last podcast that we did, we knew pretty much everything that was going to happen, almost beat for beat in this episode just given like things that Redditors put together, except I think for the fact that Lalo is the one who pulled the trigger on Howard. Big exception. Yeah. But like we talked about the end of last. these episode, if you jumped off before we talked about it, we talked about this photo that Bob Odenkirk posted back in October that showed Patrick Fabian in the outfit that he's wearing this

episode with like, like, blood, fake blood in his hair. And, um, Odin Kirk tweeted this week, someone asked about that photo. He said, well, the truth can be told, I screwed up. I did not know you could see a little bit of makeup, uh, you know, that told story, my bad. So, so we, we knew the whole plan, the whole scheme, right? And we were pretty sure. that Howard was probably going to die at the end of this episode. To me, that did not do a single thing to deter the, like to downgrade the tension or anxiety or excitement that I felt around this episode. What was your experience?

Yeah, I agree with you. And I was going to say, I think Better CallSall fans are very pleased by this episode. They were very entertained. And actually, as we record on Wednesday, this episode has the highest average IMDB user rating in Better Callsall series history, which, I was going to ask you whether you feel that that's properly rated, overrated, recency bias. It feels like it might be a bit of the latter to me, but I really liked this episode a lot. And that is one of the things that I admire so much about this series.

It is generally hard to predict what will happen. And even if you do predict something, it's still enjoyable is the thing. I mean, you might be off on some details. We were a bit off, maybe, on one pretty important detail. But even when things were kind of following the path that, we had envisioned, it was still enjoyable. I was still on the edge of my seat. So it's not necessarily a show that it is entirely reliant on not knowing what's going to come next and having that week-to-week speculation. That can be fun and enjoyable with the show, but just watching this series

execute to borrow a term from the title this week, I think that's really high-level entertainment, too. I really respect people who feel strongly about spoilers. I think everyone should be allowed to experience anything they want as unspoiled or as spoiled as they want. That's how I feel about spoilers. But for my experience, because I can't help myself sometimes trying to figure out what's going to go on with something, for my experience, it's all about that word you use execution, right? This is the thing my child by content co-host, Dave Gonzalez, always likes to say. It's about execution. And so even if you know the plot of something, you can still be dazzled by it. I mean, this happens all the time with, like, let's say, a book adaptation, right?

I've read the book, and then I watch the thing that's based on the book. I know everything that's going to happen, and I can still be dazzled by it because it's executed beautifully. And I think it also goes to this concept that Alfred Hitchcock like to talk about, and I like to bring up a lot, which is surprise versus suspense, right? Surprise versus suspense, and the Hitchcock sent to the word. You could have two people talking at a table and then you just blow them up. That's surprise, that's shock. Or you can show the audience the ticking time bomb that's in the room somewhere, and you can, you, the audience, know that there's a ticking time bomb and you are sitting there in that

moment watching these people talk, knowing that a bomb is about to go off. And that's suspense. Taking soda can. Yeah, exactly, right. And so I think suspense to me is always more interesting than shock and awe. And so I think if you were shocked by Howard's death, that's certainly an enjoyable visceral experience. But if we're, if you and I are sitting here being like, we've seen this photo that Bob posted, what is, is it going to happen?

What is it going to happen? How is it going to happen? happen, that brings its own sense of delightful, you know, dread with it, you know. I love that he had to leave the photo up because taking it down would have been a bigger given at that point, right? Totally. Another thing that, you know, the lovely Reditors put together is so Bob Odenkirk, of course, had this really scary heart attack.

And I guess it happened when they were filming the next episode because Vince Gilligan was directed. So whatever happens in the next episode. episode, Bob Odenkirk had a coronary event on set. And when Tony Dalton has talked about being there when it happened, but when Bob Odin Kirk talks about it happening, he talks about Ray being there, he talks about Patrick being there, he talks about Vince being there, but he never mentioned that Tony was there. And I think a reason why is that he didn't want to give away the fact that Howard and Kim and Lalo and Saul and we're all in one scene together.

I mean, I was really, really devastated when I heard that Boboen Kirk went to the hospital. but just that added layer of you've got to be really careful what you say at all times, even when talking about a personal health scare to preserve the experience for Saw Watchers, I think is interesting. Yeah, right. And I don't know that there's as much spoiling and rumor mongering that goes on with this show as there was with Breaking Bad or as there was with Game of Thrones, let's say, just because of the larger conversation that we were just talking about. It does seem like they run a tight ship. I don't know if security is quite as tight. I mean, I'm sure they have the watermarked screen. and all the rest, but I don't know if there's necessarily as much secrecy around the show. But it is clear, I mean, listening to The Insider podcast, Patrick Fabian knew that Howard's end was coming earlier this season. But even Ray Sehorne and Bob Odenkirk, his housemates in Albuquerque, they didn't know until

the script dropped for this episode, which came as quite a shock to all of them. I love that. All right. So let us get into the episode itself. We're going to start with, it's a little Lalo sandwich. We're going to start with Lalo and end with Lolo. So let's start with Lalo Underground. What did you make of this long sequence we get of how Lalo is spying on Gustavo Fring?

Yeah, we all float down here. You'll float too. RIP Casper, presumably. We don't get to see him go down, but I imagine he didn't meet a happy ending either. They actually said on the insider pod that they repurposed part of Nacho's oil bath to make Lalo's sewer. And I know that was just a production hack, but I love the idea of, those two both concealing themselves in the same structure or some of the same structure. And we learned another Lalo's superpower in this sequence, which is that he can wake up one

second before his alarm goes off, which is maybe his most impressive feat yet. I would take that over the detective skills, his ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Like I took a nap before this podcast and I set two alarms and I was still nervous about sleeping through them. So I made it. I did, but it was touch and go. So look, this just shows his dedication and the extent, the depths, literally, that he is willing to plunge himself to in pursuit of the truth, in pursuit of exposing this scheme, exposing what the chicken man is hiding here.

So he will go to any lengths. There's no stopping him. There may be some stopping him. We will see later this season. But it takes a ton to stop him because he will use truck stop him. showers. He will spend four days in a storm drain. He will do whatever it takes. Yeah. And I only actually recently learned about the showers and the trucks. I was like, of course it is. But a friend of mine was driving across country and he's like, yeah. And then occasionally I would take showers that, you know,

the loves the like, the like, uh, truck stop chain. And I was like, what they have showers there? He's like, yeah, they're pretty nice. It's like, wow. But do you ever take car naps, Bedlenburg? Are you a car nap person? Yes, because I'm not a driver. And so if I'm in a car, I am able to sleep. I don't own a car. So I don't do it regularly, but I have done it. I've been known to take a car and up because, like, especially when I drive up from L.A. or down to L.A. on the five, it gets really, like, monotonous and lulling. And just occasionally you need to pull over and just take a little, like a short little snooze.

And you're back on, back in the, on the road. Okay. So I think the re a reason that Gilliganverse is always interested in these like slow, methodical. What's the process here? Sequences, right? This isn't new watching like, how does. he get the manhole cover off? When does he do this? What is he wearing? Why does he have shower shoes? Like all this sort of stuff. But I think also it helps us understand how a Lalo, who we've

already seen do a million brilliant things, could get the drop on a mic. Like we respect Mike's abilities so much. So it has to be extreme in order for him to pull the wool over Mike's eyes. And I, you know, I think living in a storm drain for four days constitutes extreme. Yeah, that qualifies. Yeah. Great camera work by him as well with the camcorder. But I do have some notes for phone taps in general. I think phone taps need to be better.

If you can hear them, if it's so obvious that they give themselves away, it kind of defeats the purpose. I was actually Googling to see if this is just a convenient TV-slash-movie fiction. And apparently not. But apparently this is a real risk of phone taps, at least if you have a landline like Casa Trunquilla does. So I was inclined to blame Mike or Gus's guys for doing a sloppy job with the installation. But apparently this can happen. And I enjoyed that moment, too, because everything that Lalo has been doing, all of the sneaking and skulking around and the false identities and the sleeping in the car and the spending the day in the sewer, all of that, his cover is blown with this one. call to Hector as soon as he realizes that the phone is tapped.

And now they know. Now, I was sort of surprised that they bought it that easily, his misdirection here. So the disconnection, the call back, the telegraphing, his intent. Once he briefly freaks out, we see him loses cool and his little chair pays the price. But he quickly is common collected Lalo again. And he comes up with a plan B here. and they just take it, you know, hookline and sinker. Immediately they are scattering like ants.

And granted, maybe Gus doesn't completely buy it because he still asks if someone is watching the laundry. Yeah. But nobody's watching Jimmy and Kim. So the coast is clear for Lolo. I do love learning how to say clever, clever chicken man in Spanish. So thank you for that, Lalo. And the thing I love, too, is that Salas is not

underwesting a meeting its audience, right? because he doesn't like hang with the phone be like a phone tap oh no you know what he mean like he's never explaining what's happening we just we just listen for the little cricket sound on the on the phone and understand by his reaction what's going on speaking of of critters he sees his cockroach scuttle across and um you know i think it's peter gul on the insider podcast or someone pointed out that in last season when i found the clip when lalo was talking to kim about jimmy he calls him a cockroach, like a garage. So he sees the cockroach and he's like, aha.

The big question is sort of like, what is he doing there at their apartment at the end? And we will spend a little bit more time there. And they talked about this at Link on the Insider podcast. Like, we know that Lalo visited the apartment. Kim sort of made of sterner stuff. Kim sort of stands him down and he walks away. But he walks away knowing that he didn't get the full story. But the big smoking gun here is not necessarily that he absolutely knows that Jimmy knows Mike, right?

But he does know that Jimmy knows Nacho and he does know that Nacho was involved in the assassination attempt, right? And so he's like, all right, the lawyer, who knows Nacho. Jimmy had help from someone like Mike, perhaps, it's not necessarily Mike himself. Exactly. So. Cockroach per the insider pot. Not CGI cockroach. That's upsetting.

I mean, if they used all those real ants on the ice cream cone last season, of course, they're going to use the real cockroach here. I don't have much to say about the Gus and Mike scene. It's very brief and it doesn't really tell us much. And, you know, if this, I think, were a true midseason finale, we might have gotten something splash here for Gus and Mike to sustain us. But since it's not, you know, anything you want to say about their conversation? No, not really. It's just the usual Gus constructing his cover story as the final. upstanding his citizen and the person who donates to charitable causes to keep the attention away from him.

So it is interesting, I guess, that they assume that Lalo's coming for them immediately. That's the thing that the fact that they swallow this so wholeheartedly, I guess, sort of surprises me. Just because generally Gus has such a sixth sense for these things and he is thinking a step or two ahead of everyone. and maybe it's, you know, in this case, it's another call to Hector. It's, Hector is always connected with the giveaways with Lalo to in some way. But here they're also keyed up. They've been waiting for Lalo for so long at this point that just to get the confirmation, Mike didn't even know for sure that Gus was not just in his head and dreaming up the idea that Lalo was there.

So they have constructed this trap so carefully that I guess it makes sense. that they would be eager to spring it now that they think this is the time. As I already mentioned, we knew every step, every single step of this plan, not how the drug would be administered. And I guess we were misdirected by some chamomile tea, but that's fine. Yes, there was that. But other than that, maybe it made the drug more effective, but we were worried about the drugs.

I was very nervous. More than we were something else killing him. I was very nervous that he's going to have a heart attack. That's true. And actually the thing I was most nervous about was the goop was on his hands and then he was like touching Irene. Yeah, I was so worried about Irene. Really worried about that. Because she's a chamomile tea drinker too.

I know. Which I almost thought was like maybe the writers rubbing it in like winking at us for over analyzing the chamomile tea in the last episode. But I was worried that yeah, she was going to get some kind of contact high here or Howard would just wheel her off a balcony in his own high or something. I was worried. Glad Irene's okay. But let's talk about it, before we talk about like the Howard side of it, let's talk about the, the Jimmy and Kim side of it, right? So they pull it all together. This is the thrill.

This is the high. This is the excitement. They get the whole team back together. Kim is, you know, and when Kim shows up, they do a, they do a really interesting like, you know, one or one shot as part of the sequence. But when Kim shows up and I think Jimmy says, oh, thank God, something like that, right? Where it's just sort of like, he feels so, even though Jimmy's the season, Connor is he feels so much more confident doing this. if Kim's there to help. And, you know, Chris and Andy, I think, called her director Kim.

I loved that, I love the sequence of, especially since, since Ray got to direct an episode a couple of weeks ago. But like watching her direct the whole thing, throwing her shoes running back and forth, all of that stress. It felt very like meta from a crew of people who have been making television for so long when they're like, it's really hard to do this sometimes, guys, especially. Your shoes in the shot. Under a time crunch.

But yeah, this is the high. And then it culminates, as we see, in this sort of sexual excitement, excitement for Jimmy and Kim. And this is something that, again, Cress and Andy have been talking about, you and I have been talking about this idea of chemistry with Jimmy and Kim. Do they have it? And the truth is they do when it's off the back of something like this. This is their kink. This is what gets them going. And so if you go back to Days of Wine and Roses, which we talked about the film that the writers have said sort of inspired this relationship,

That's the intoxication that they're chasing. This is the connection. This is the intoxication. This is the high. We will get to the low. Well, the scam working to perfection at first is fun for us, too, right? It's intoxicating for the audience also. I mean, it wasn't fun for me in quite the same way that it was fun for them.

Unfortunately. You didn't wake your wife up and be like, hey. I just watched a great episode. But there's an audience complicity angle to this, too, where we know something is going to go wrong, but we are still enjoying the ride. And now maybe we feel a little guilty about that too. At least I did after the fact, because we know that something is going to happen to Howard here.

And yet, for those moments, just watching every domino fall, I was just kind of enjoying going along with it, seeing it all come to fruition after the weeks of speculating about how it would happen. So first of all, obviously, shout out to Patrick Fabian for doing an incredible job in this episode in both, in the three major showpieces, for him, which is the ginger ale speech, the drug freak out, and then the final confrontation. I want to go back to this ginger ale sort of Chuck speech here.

We got a lot of emails about this, about the parallels between the death of Howard Hamlin and the death of Chuck McGill. The show is not shy about it, right? They're not trying to hide this in any way. There's this great shot where Howard's standing in front of this portrait of Chuck, and they're dressed so similarly. I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about the repeating history here. here. But the ginger ale speech, I think, is going to go down in history as like one of the most

memorable better call Saul pieces of writing. What do you think? Yeah. Yeah, on the insetter pod, Tom Schnau said he learned this from his dad. My dad did not tell me about this. I have always tapped the side of the can. That was my method. Same idea, I guess. But it's just so perfect the idea of Howard and Chuck trying to control everything, including carbonation, but their lives still blow up because of their proximity to Kim and Jimmy or their own blind spots. So there are so many parallels here and really with their undoing and with the whole scheme and with the private eye and the whole chicanery, you know, Chuck being exposed and both of them looking like they're out of their mind. And then we get that line.

Maybe there are more important things, right, when Carrie, the young HHM employee who does not know who Chuck was. What do you think the M stands for, Carrie? Come on. Anyway. Well, they're going to have to rename this whole firm at this point. I know. There are no Hamlins or McGillson. So, I mean, Chuck lost his marriage.

He died alone. The young employee at the firm that's named after him doesn't even know who he was. And when Howard says that, maybe there are more important things than being known as the finest legal mind. Maybe he's worrying that this is happening to him, too. His marriage is falling apart. Maybe, you know, not that he foresees what is going to. happened to him at the end of this episode. At least he didn't die alone. He went the way we all want to go surrounded by a cartel killer and two grifters who just destroyed his career. At least he had

company. But there are clearly a lot of parallels. If Tony Dalton wants to be at my side when I die, I will not. I'll be really fine with it. Okay. So this speaks to something that I think is really interesting. And I think Chris and Andy were circling this, or at least one of our emails about this. I think what they've done with Howard in this first half of the season leading up to his death has been like good and interesting. We've enjoyed talking about it. We enjoy the therapy moment. You know, like you and I saw this coming, not necessarily until last week that that death would definitely be the thing here, but that you and I from the beginning, it's felt very clear that Kim and Jimmy were going to pull a thing that was going to go over the line. You know, they kept hammering like, oh, it's just one man's career.

It's going to be fine. And that tells us the audience, probably not. probably won't be, right? So we knew something horrible was coming in, so we as overly exposed to TV, TV watchers are watching the writers carefully lay all this track of getting us to care more about Howard right before they kill him.

This is an old trick. You know, if a show starts really leading on the virtues of someone, that means, depending on the show you're watching, the clock might be ticking on them. And do I think that perhaps they put a little too much gas into that for Howard this season? I think you can make that argument. I think the way in which Howard was like,

remembering a valet's name or even being nice to this like guy in the office like that doesn't seem wholly in character you've been really good ben throughout to be like okay Howard is a human but he's not a saint right like it's not saint Howard he's done some things which Howard himself outlines at the end of this episode like he's he's done some things but um do you think they they pushed it a little too strong something we learned in the insider podcast they didn't know that they were going to do this right here at the end necessarily and so it's not like they had seasons to lay the track for Howard's demise. So what do you think about that? Yeah, and Howard's role on the show and Chuck's role on the show, or their presences on the show, that just evolved as

the series went on. Right. I do think there's some ways in which it felt a bit abrupt. I mean, in one sense, Howard has been a constant. He's been here since season one. So it's not as if he just joined the cast and you have some truth teller who waltzes in in season six to make us feel bad for them and be predisposed to see Jimmy and Kim as bad people. Much of what we've learned about, Howard, seems consistent with what we know of his character. True, maybe he has been a bit too solicitous at times or too caring. It's just a side of him we hadn't seen. We knew he had a wedding ring.

We didn't know anything else beyond that. And so they're filling in the blanks here. On the one hand, you do want to keep learning things about your character. right up to the end. Yeah. And I think he's a useful barometer for keeping track of Kim and Jimmy's dissent because he's from that legal world. He's known them since they were in the mailroom.

He can see how far they've fallen perhaps with greater clarity than anyone else. And because he's not exactly an angel or an inherently sympathetic character himself, if he's the one who can call them on the carpet and dress them down like that, which, wow, that was just an incredible scene. then I think that really just goes to show how far they have come and not in a good way. So I think he serves a useful purpose here. Could they have laid the groundwork a little earlier or parceled it out a little more elegantly? Yeah, perhaps, maybe.

There are just only so many chess pieces left on the board at this point, right? And now there's one less than there was. Yeah, I think it's the geniality to underlings that is the thing that feels most out of character for him. I just don't think he would be nice to interns and valets. Although maybe he's turning over a new leaf because of how things are falling apart for him at home, right? Maybe he's realizing that being the brilliant legal mind or being the partner with your name on the sign, that's not enough, ultimately. So maybe he's undergoing some evolution here. He's going to therapy, right?

Maybe the therapy is working. It's true. And maybe there are more important things, I think, is such just like a beautiful, sad line for someone who's just about to meet the, you know, having a revelation right before your clock runs out, the minute before the timer day. when it's too late. We talked about being worried for Irene, but I just want to point out in terms of the sainthood of Howard. I'm just seeing this. I went too deep on the red of boards is what is happening,

and I'm seeing a binary of like Howard is a saint and perfect, and Jimmy and Kim are evil incarnate, and I think that's not the show we're watching. It's much more nuance than that, right? And so I think that I'm glad that the wheelchair gambit is in this episode because we see Howard go into the boardroom. He takes a chair away from the conference table, and the reason he takes that chair away

is he's going to put the wheelchair there and then he insists it's a real Jimmy move honestly to put Irene in that wheelchair and so I appreciate that there is that element to Howard in this episode at the end of all things and maybe he's picked up that sort of thing from Jimmy you know maybe that is an aspect of Jimmy

that has rubbed off on him as well and then before we leave HHM because I know I'm there's a there's a version of the season where we never see these characters again. I just want to shout out Ed Begley Jr. For a surprisingly large role. Yeah, not complaining.

First half final season, great stuff from him. And then also shout out the return of Richard Schweiger, a character I've always loved. I'm glad to see him here, too. Thanks to the legal team, you are potentially dismissed. Our colleague Miles Surrey wrote a great piece on the finale, and he said, this is now a cartel show, right? Like, the legal, the Sandpiper case is largely wrapped. up. We could never see those legal folks again. We might see some of the fallout of Howard's

death, but we could never see them again. Kim and Jimmy are there now forever in the cartel story going forward. Yes. Yeah. No, this does feel like a turning point. Absolutely. And also, yeah, and shout out to the father-daughter team in this episode as well, right, of our favorite Joe from Mystic Quest, who is just all over the conference call here in her very very very. very officious way. And that actor, she's the daughter of the actor, the old friend of Bob Odencorks for Mr. Show, who plays the fake mediator in this episode as well. So I guess they don't get to be in the same scene, but same episode as well. So that's sweet. Photos. Oh, no, not even photos of him in the same scene with her. Yeah, John Ennis and Jesse Ennis. Shout out the Ennis family

dynasty. Oh, and also, I guess one last little thread to tie up is that, you know, you and I were debating last week whether or not the PI was working. Yes. And we get, I think I really actually, you know, they were talking about on the insider podcast how they burden Howard with a lot of exposition, explanation of what the scheme. He has to explain the scheme as he's reacting to the scheme. And I actually think one of the more deft deployments of that was explaining the PI thing because he's doing it in this moment of like really trying to convince Cliff that this is what's

going on and we get Ed Begley Jr. is just sort of unsure what to do. with this explosion of information and erratic behavior, and it works really well, I think. Yeah. There are some things that are left to the imagination this season just because we're running out a runway. You know, how does Lalo get back from Germany to New Mexico? How does he get through customs? Via the global sewer system, obviously.

Yeah, apparently, right. You know, what is his new alter ego? What is his fake identity? We don't know, but that's okay. He's Lalo. He can transcend any border. Initially, that's what I thought we were watching. I thought we were watching his progress across the border via manhole

and then eventually it was like, oh, no, that's not. He's already there. I thought maybe he was trying to tunnel into the super lab. It's like we're going to be here for a while. Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? Zepbound terseptitide may be able to help. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity.

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Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-9-9 or visit zepbounce.lily.com. All right, so let's get down to this final conversation. We see Jimmy and Kim doing their favorite activity, which is watching old movies. They're watching a great film born yesterday. A movie I've seen a bunch of times. I am having trouble applying any.

anything from the plot of Born Yesterday, which is about sort of this, like, ditsy gangsters mall who falls in love with this guy who's hired to tutor her, played by William Holden. And, you know, it's a great, it's a great movie. There is some, like, cartel gangster crashing stuff, a love story between a blonde woman and a hands. I don't know. I'm stretching.

There's a crooked lawyer. There's a marriage of convenience in there. And there's the woman who turns out to be something more than she seems. So I can see why this is on their letterbox list. It doesn't make as much sense as the days of wine in roses necessarily. But I can see why they would choose this flick to kick back and celebrate Howard's downfall. It's a really good movie if folks haven't seen it. And then tell me what you think about this.

So Howard knocks on the door. And Jimmy's like, you know, we don't have to let him in. Kim's like, let's get it over with. Let's do it. And he's like, I'll do it in case Max Schmelling comes in swinging, which is the name of, you know, a boxer. And I was, because I know nothing about boxing, was looking on the Max Schmelling Wikipedia page

to try to figure out if I understood why he would call Howard Max Schmelling. There's two options here. One, Max Schmelling, I guess, was called the low blow champion. That's one thing. Two, a Nazi sympathizer. Aryan in his way, the way that Patrick Fabian's kind of an Aryan poster job. What do you think this reference is?

Yeah, it's just partly the call back just to their boxing scene, of course. Oh, of course. Now that we know what Kim said about, you know what happens next, right? Now we know what was going to happen next to. And now we know why Jimmy turned around maybe and let Howard have that moment of triumph. Although what strikes me here when he shows up at their apartment, no surprise whatsoever, obviously in contrast to the next person who arrives. But this was, again, he is still sort of running in the hamster wheel that they have constructed for him here.

Like, this is the next step. I don't know whether they put this on the D-Day board or not. But they knew he was going to show up. They knew he was going to figure out the scheme and probably confront them. And it doesn't seem like they're even that apprehensive about having this conversation. They're just like, all right, I guess we'll let Howard in. We'll let him have his say and then we'll get back to our movie. Right.

It's like so callous. I mean, they don't seem to be racked with guilt, and they don't even seem to be worried about having to face up to this and having the object of their scheme say, how could you do this to me? Well, it's because they've spun a justification story for themselves, right? Like Kim saying it's just one lawyer's a professional hiccup for one lawyer. You know what I mean? And I was, I don't know about you, but I was really nervous in that scene because this has happened before. Saul where someone is recording someone. And I was like, is he coming in to get a confession from them?

And Kim, cool, as a cucumber, Jimmy's the only one who, like, cracks and acknowledges that anything even happened, right? Kim is, they both were like, what are you talking about? What do you mean? And then, and then Jimmy's like, you'll be fine, Howard. It'll be okay. You'll live on your feet. Yeah.

Yeah. And I was like, Jimmy, no, just keep it together, man. That was not the thing I needed to be worried about in that moment. I guess he could have heard through the grapevine about what happened. Like, obviously, they are connected to the same type of case, and Jimmy's going to get his payout here. So he would have been informed, presumably, even if this was not a scheme that he orchestrated, he might have known what happened. He might have heard as a FHM person that Howard kind of cracked up here. So I guess there's a cover story there.

But you do see those moments of humanity, right? And that kind of contrasts with the just incredible speech that Howard delivers here, where he says, you have a piece missing. I thought you did it for the money. But now it's so clear. Screw the money. You did it for fun. You get off on it. You're like Leopold and Lode to sociopaths.

And I don't think that Jimmy and Kim are complete sociopaths. They do seem affected by Howard's revelation about his depression and his marriage, right? They exchange a little look there. Yeah. Like, oh, we didn't know about that. part. And, right, Jimmy makes the comment about how he'll land on his feet. Lalo is the true sociopath in this scene, right? Howard, I guess, is the least sociopathic person in the room. This is not a place for people with consciences to be. But if he goes slightly too far, if he exaggerates a tad, he's not

going too far from the truth because what he accuses him of here and just the devastating reading of their characters that he delivers, you can't really come to any other conclusion, then, yep, he's right, for the most part. Speaking of, like, Kim and sociopathy, right? I'm seeing a lot of really extreme reactions centered on Kim in terms of what happens here. Am I arguing that Kim is heroic in any way in this episode?

No. Other than, like, a sociopath, if they were true sociopaths, they would not care whether or not Howard got shot by Lolo, right? but they are absolutely terrified. It's a threat to them, I suppose. I suppose, but they were terrified. It seemed like to me, they were like, this is way further than we ever expected this to go.

But I want to circle back to Kim's motivations here. We got this really, really interesting email from a listener, Kyle, that I wish I had time to, like, read the whole thing. But it was a really interesting complication of Howard's read on Kim and even our read on Kim, which is, you know, he's like, what we're putting on Kim here is the whole Walter White I did it because I like it because it feels good. You know, like I was good at it. All that sort of stuff. Right.

And her U-turn on the road last week is an indication to us that her idea that, oh, I'm doing this to get money to do pro bono work is absolute hollow bullshit. And really she's just doing it to be vindictive. However, Calrose is this really interesting email about if you think about how Kim grew up, not having any money of her own, how throughout this we've seen her, especially like. have to eat shit for Howard in Dock Review, et cetera, that Cliff Main is offering her a really cool opportunity, but she's still like someone else's employee. And would it not be more attractive to someone like Kim to have the independence of her own money? And that's what the same like pushing the Sandpiper case along can get for her.

It's not I'm going to go become part of this really cool pro bono organization. it's I'm going to run my own, right? It's not the only thing that's motivating her, obviously. All that other stuff is still there. But I thought that was a really interesting read, among other really smart things that Kyle said, about Kim and how complicated she is and how nuanced she is and who she is.

It's not like a switch flipped in her, and she's a completely different person now. It's all part of this trajectory. The flashbacks that we've seen of her as a child is all part of this long road to where she is now. and her motivations are muddier than some people, I think, are thinking they are. What do you think, Ben? Yeah, I appreciated that interpretation.

It was not something that had occurred to me. And Kyle did kind of critique the writers for maybe not making that clear or not laying enough breadcrumbs that we could come to that conclusion ourselves. Because I had not necessarily interpreted it that way. Not that Kim necessarily needs to come out and say exactly what she's thinking and feeling at all times. We want some showing and not telling here, but maybe there wasn't even that much showing of this. I guess you could say that that flashback scene, we were kind of talking about, did they need to include this? Is this just telling us something about Kim that we already knew? Maybe that reminder was useful here if they did want to kind of complicate Kim's motivations here,

although it really just does seem in the moment when she shows up and Jimmy greets her and she says, you know, this is where I have to be. I mean, it seems pretty clear that she just really is so into the scam and the couch sex after the scam and all of that that I don't know that these other motivations are not even foremost in her mind, but that prominent in her mind. Maybe it's all just part of that sea of emotions that's just under the surface, under that facade of the face that never really gives away what she's feeling. But they've sent so many signals that it's more about that piece missing, right, that Howard identifies. And maybe this is the piece that's missing, that her upbringing was that piece that she didn't have, and that is still affecting her today. Because I love that line, you have a piece missing, because it means that they can't complete or complement each other the way that you might hope your partner can. If you both have that same piece missing, then one can't provide what the other lacks. they can only commiserate in missing it and sink into it more and more.

Yeah. Chase the spiral. Yeah. Together. Right. Yeah. And I mean, it's possible that the writers might not agree with Kyle's interpretation. It's possible that Ray Sehoran might not agree with Kyle's interpretation.

And that's all fine. It's possible that everyone listening doesn't agree. I just think it's a smart read on a character. It's an interesting possibility. And I think no matter what, we can agree that it's all a bit more complicated for Kim. But you're absolutely right that she's. also chasing a high that's true too you know or and it might be the the biggest percentage of what's going on here um the other thing that um i want to shout out someone on reddit for pointing this out i hadn't i hadn't

i think this is true um okay so first of all when Howard comes in first the candle flickers once right and kim sees it and the camera notices it and i registered and i was like that's that was a weird shot right yeah when the candle gotters again and we see there i think this is one of the best shots ever in not only Better Cross All, but Breaking Bad History, is Jimmy and Kim looking at the candle and then looking at the door and then we know before we see Lalo that it has to be Lalo and it is terrifying and like elemental and like almost like a fairy tale. Like the candle flickers once and then it flickers again and then you're dead. You know, like it's just, it's so genius and upsetting. But someone on Reddit points out that like when Lolo walks in,

Jimmy goes, you know, we know that Kim knows he's alive and Jimmy doesn't, right? And Jimmy goes, how, like, how are you alive? As in, I knew you were dead. As in I was involved somehow in your death, right? And that Kim immediately turns that how into Howard. He says, how. And she goes, Howard, like maybe covering for Jimmy. I don't know that Kim is necessarily, she's so sharp. She's one of smartest people alive, according to Howard Hamlin, right? Like, but it might be that she was. covering Jimmy's tracks in the moment there with like turning his how into Howard. But what do you think? Yeah, she sort of saves him. Of course, she also put him in that position by not telling him Lala was alive in the first place because she doesn't think he's made enough, made of certain enough stuff potentially. But she shows the sternness of her stuff again here by maybe coming up with that save off the cuff.

If that is indeed what happened, I like that answer. And I loved the candle because it doesn't have to be something super. supernatural, like listening to Schnaus talk about this decision on the insider pod, you know, he was talking about how this happens in real life sometimes. The door opens, the air pressure changes. There's a different air current. The candle can flicker. But that reminded me of a Christmas Carol or Herschel and the Hanukkah Goblins, something like that where the candle flickering signals the approach of something scary and supernatural. And here it's Lalo, who of course looks like a ghost to Jimmy and is framed that way in the show. because he's just the shadowy figure who is hovering over Howard's shoulder, right? But Howard's about to be a ghost, too. He's a dead man walking when he enters the room, although no one knows it at that time. So I thought that was great because Schnauz talked about how they tried different sequences of shots and telegraphing Jimmy's horror and shock, and they had close-up shots of like his eyes, his pupils

dilating, not because of a drug, but because he was having this realization that Lala's back And it was all just too cute and too complicated and too jarring it. They went with something simple. But brilliant because, yeah, we did have that moment. And as soon as I realized, I thought, of course, right? Like, kudos to the writers for making me briefly forget about Lalo in that moment. Because, yeah, in a lot of ways we saw this coming. I know I mentioned at some point this season that I was worried about Howard seeing

to me with Lalo and getting mixed up in cartel, trouble. And we did see the D-Day scheme coming last week for the most part. And we thought that something would go wrong and that Howard would die. But, you know, we knew Lalo wasn't really going after Gus. So we should have seen, it shouldn't have been tough to predict that he might go back to see Jimmy and Kim, who he never really believed he got a straight story out of. But I was so absorbed in that scene in that moment that when the candle flickered, my face probably looked like Jimmy's. I think I felt like Howard in his office. piecing together how it happened and saying I got played every step of the way. Because even though

we anticipated a lot of that, in that moment, I was not like Lalo's about to walk in that door and put a bullet in Howard's brain. I just didn't see it. So that's a testament to the writers. And it's a testament, obviously, to Patrick Fabian and all of the Albuquerque housemates here for how they sold this scene and just distracted us from Lalo, who we could have known was coming. And I'm sure some listeners and viewers did. But I was just so in that moment that I wasn't even envisioning any other outcome. Yeah, I've seen some people claim that they're like, as soon as I saw the cockroach, I knew he was going to, and I was like, okay, did you?

All right. Kudos. Like I said before, a lot of people have a road into us to draw the parallels between the end of Chuck and the end of Howard. And I actually have even a little bit more to say about that. But I think there's such an interesting shot of Howard gets shot in the head, and then he falls and his head smashes into their coffee table. And my first instinct, because you're sort of like, why, he's already dead.

Maybe it underlines the brutality of his death. Maybe it leaves key DNA behind on a table that might be, you know, come back into play or something like that. But one of our listeners wrote in, and a bunch of people noticed this, pointed this out, that it recalls Chuck passing out in the copy shop in the episode nailed that Chuck ranting and everything spinning around him and then he falls. and he hits his head in a much the same way that Howard did here. So just another parallel between the end of Chuck and the end of Howard.

What do you think? And another one explicitly is with Howard saying, Jimmy, you can't help yourself. Chuck knew it, which is a reminder of the Chuck line in the end. You're going to hurt everyone around you. You can't help it. Which came true. And again, was kind of a prophecy that Chuck helped fulfilled by pushing Jimmy in that way. But it does ultimately happen.

And I saw some people point out there's probably a breaking. bad callback here to Hank right before his death, saying to Walt, you're the smartest guy I ever met, right? Just as Howard says that Kim is one of the smartest and most promising human beings he's ever known to her right before he dies too. And maybe there's a reference to Mike's famous monologue as well about our choices putting us on a road because Howard says to Kim, this is the life you choose. And now those choices are coming back to Roost. It's like the classic reaping versus sewing tweet. That is what is happening here.

Yeah. Let's talk about did Howard need to die? This isn't a shock for Swee-Sweek, as we've already mentioned. So what narrative purpose does it serve to have Howard die here other than like what we've been talking about all along, which is like this is one, there's a step over the line for our heroes or are they heroes, right? Yeah. This is the point of no return.

And watching this scheme come together, if we compare this to the breaking bad, first half the final season of Breaking Bad. that ends with the train heist, right? And so this is like, this is a con job that is supposed to be as exciting as a train. Is it quite as excited as a train heist? I don't know. But the way the train heist ends at the end of the first half of Breaking Bad has parallels here. And we got, we got an email from our listener, Pablo, who said,

the first half Breaking Bad's last season has the fun train heist that is immediately followed by the murder of Drew Sharp. This is a kid, right? That's what breaks Jesse. The second that happens, he's done with the meth business. Howard is Jimmy and Kim's. Drew Sharp. He's the consequences of their scheming, but we know that this is not the end of Jimmy's path as Saul. I'm not sure that I completely agree with the Howard is Jimmy. I don't

know exactly what's happening there, but this idea of the point, like, hopefully future Oscar winner Jesse Plymonds, Mark a Kid. That was, that was Jesse being like, oh my God. I can't, I am done, right? And similarly, and I could be wrong, I think the same moment happens for while when Hank dies. What's interesting about looking at Kim and Jimmy as they watch Howard die, what we're going to find out in a few weeks from now next episode, is, is this the point of no return? Or is this an I'm out for one or either of them? If it's an I'm out for Jimmy and Kim still in is at the end of their relationship. If it's an I'm out for Kim, but Jimmy's still in, is at the end of their relationship? You know, who is going to make what, who is going to make what

decision there. I feel like because we do not seek him in breaking bad, that they will not be aligned necessarily in their reaction to what happened here, though I could not tell you which way each of them are going to go. What do you think? Right. Yeah. And I think that Odin Kirk and Seahorn, they really sold the horror of his death in that instant. I think they knew in that moment that there's no going back to what they were before, back to a respectable life. Maybe they will disagree on what course of action to take here. But I think that is something that you can't really put back in the box. Like the mushroom cloud on the D-Day Post-it note was Howard's head exploding. Like, who knew? He is not going to get back on his feed. And I think that much as I miss Nacho,

much as I felt for Nacho, he was in the game. Howard wasn't. He was a pawn in Jimmy and Kim's game. And that was what got him killed. And I think we needed someone like that. Not a complete innocent, but an innocent by the standards of the Breaking Bad, Better Calls, All universe. And the creators of these shows, they are very big on there have to be consequences. So if everything's going right and everyone's getting away with everything, that is a great sign that something is really not about to go right for someone and that there is going to have to be some payback there and someone is going to have to suffer. And I think when the legal side and the cartel side of the series come together, which has happened sparingly of late, and so I think the impact is even greater. But it's like matter and antimatter meeting. It's like if you don't have the right charge the way that Jimmy and Kim do where they can cross between those worlds, you're done.

Like Howard lasts 30 seconds, right, once those streams cross. And as soon as Lalo walks into that room, it's like Howard's trying to breathe and, alien atmosphere. Like he is just so out of his depth and the consequences are not career killing. Suddenly their life and death and he is just not prepared for that. I want to pivot into consequences and this like next half on a better call salt teaser that we get, etc. Something that's interesting they talked about on the insider podcast is this idea that Jimmy really should have known better because of the Chuck Howard parallels here. It's like Jimmy already knows what

already took this step over the line when Chuck kills himself as a result of a very similar scheme that Jimmy runs on Chuck, right? And he's had his hesitancies this season. We've seen him sort of try to back off of this and Kim has been the one who's been like, no, let's go ahead.

And according to the insider podcast, they're like, well, Kim doesn't know the extent of what happened with Chuck necessarily. And Jimmy does. And Jimmy did it anyway. And we've already seen how Jim reacted to what happened with Chuck, he just buried himself deeper in Saul, right? Saul Goodman.

Like, that's, that was his reaction to Chuck. And I feel like Breaking Bad has to be his reaction to Howard, which is he's just going to completely disappear himself into Saul Goodman. And that's like a prison of its own kind. Like, you know, what we've been watching Jimmy do this whole series is chase a better version of himself that he might be. And so the tragedy is he's going to wind up being the worst version of himself, the person that Chuck always said he was, the person that Howard thinks he is as well. That's who we've seen him be. And so the fact that like, you're never going to watch Breaking Bad the same way again. It's a tragedy. We laughed at Saul when we were first watched Breaking Bad. Now we're just going to mourn the death of Jimmy McGill, you know, because of his own bad choices. We're going to talk about Kim in a second. But I want to, you know, I want to. get your take on Jimmy and consequences here.

Yeah, I think that's right. And what I wonder is whether we can still sympathize. Do we still root for redemption for these characters? Like, look, we never bought that they were doing the Lord's work, as Jimmy said. And I don't think they thought that either. But now it's all laid bare. If it's anyone's work, it's the devil's work. So you go back to the season five finale when they're talking about cooking up this plan.

And it's we would have to hurt him, hurt him bad. Howard would have to have done something unforgivable. Now they're the ones who've done something unforgivable, right? So can we forgive them? This is what I was getting at early in the season when I said I was almost more worried about what Kim would do than what would be done to her. Yes. Now we have Howard calling our two protagonists soulless, and it's only a slight exaggeration.

So this is the age-old prestige TV anti-hero dilemma, right? Whether it's the Shield or the Sopranos are Breaking Bad or Mad Men or Dexter or you, whatever it is, the creators always seem to want audiences to hold their characters to account. And they never do because we always sympathize with the person who gets the most screen time seemingly. Well, okay, okay, but point of order. They almost never do except unless that person is a woman, is what I'm going to say. Right. Well, yeah. So is this Howard speech response to people rooting for Walt and against Skyler and just the creator stepping in and saying,

no, don't you see, you shouldn't give these people a pass? Or is this the low point for them? And years later, redemption proves to be possible. Or, as you said, because this is the woman in this scenario, will she not get extended that same grace from the audience? I mean, Kim has been special to Better Call Saul Watchers for a long time now. If anything, we've been watching for Kim and to find out what happens to Kim

and we've all been so worried about Kim that I think it's tough to turn on a dime and say we hate Kim now and we don't care what happens to Kim, but she really has fallen far. And so I do wonder whether we get to that point with her or whether she does end up sacrificing herself somehow. I mean, you want to speculate a little bit

about what's to come for Kim here? I just want to address some disturbing reactions I've seen to this episode because I think that I think it's really, really natural, as you say, to be like, wow, how do I feel about Kim Wexler at this point? How do I feel about her involvement up to the death of Howard? Her culpability. Did she pull the trigger? No. Is she somewhat culpable in moving the chest piece here? Sure, all of that sort of stuff. Am I still rooting for Kim Wexler list at gmail.com? Yeah, I don't want her to die. I don't think those are the consequences of what happened here. But I do think there should be

consequences for both of them. And as we said, we've seen some consequences for Jimmy already. It's his existence as the clown Saul Goodman. Like that's those are his consequences. What are the consequences for Kim here? And we can game out certain scenarios. But I just have seen some really disturbing like Kim is evil. Poor Jimmy. She pulled him into this. Like she's this corrupting evil force and Jimmy is this like he tried to resist her feebly a couple of times. so he's this like innocence. But like, no, Jimmy's the one who already went through this with Chuck.

Like, Jimmy is the one who knows how bad this can go. I am empathetic to why he went along with it because he felt like he was going to lose her if he didn't. Like, I think what this show is so brilliant at is making all of these characters so complicated. And so I find what happens to Kim and Jimmy here are a tragedy for both of them. You see the problem. Like Howard, you see the promise, at least in Kim.

He sees, I see the promise of Jimmy. and they just couldn't help themselves. And I find that tragic, and I have a lot of empathy for them, for these horrible mistakes that they have made that have put them here. Yeah. And Jimmy lit the match initially with Kim, I think. There was some flammable material there, clearly, because of her past. She was primed to go up.

Yeah. But Jimmy was the one who lit that match. Maybe he has tried to put it out a couple times recently, or at least delay. But he was the one who, if anything, got her into this. more so than the other way around. And ever since then, it's been a conversation about who's leading whom. And really, it's just such a mutual thing that there's no point in trying to untangle it. They are both, I think, equally culpable in this scheme, regardless of who exactly came up with any specific beat or who maybe tried to pump the brakes a bit. They've both been all in on this for the

most part. So I think, I mean, I think if you're sitting at home and you're like, I'm having, I'm going to, I feel differently about Kim than I used to you or I'm having trouble feeling like I want to root for her. Like all of that is really natural. That's what the show is offering up to you. I just think that there have been some extreme reactions that are giving me like acid Skyler White flashbacks that just like it's just like a nasty little streak in the fandom that I, that disturbs me. And I don't think the show is trying to give us that at all.

So I am confused about it. Speaking of rooting for villains, Lalo is another guy, right? Because he's so charismatic. He's someone that we find ourselves wanting to see more of at the very least, even though he does horrible things. And I have seen some people wondering, why would Lalo do that? Why would he come in and kill Howard, who he doesn't even know? It tracks for me because we know he has no qualms about killing when someone's in his way.

He killed the kid at Travel Wire. He killed that couple at his compound. He kept there just so he could kill them if he needed a body. And I don't think he is at all pained by this. I don't know that he's thinking or caring about long-term consequences. there could be some. We can talk about that. But he's already gotten out of a murder wrap once. Now everyone already thinks he's dead. So he's probably not going to be blamed for this. And he has such a single-minded goal of taking down the chicken man that I'm not sure he'd mind if he did get caught as

long as he achieved that, as long as he was able to expose Gus, which of course we know he's not going to be able to do. And that's the other thing that frustrates me and that like people, it's so fun to watch a Lalo do all these horrible things, but we love watching, like, we're, you know, we imagine there will be consequences for Lalo, but, but I haven't heard anyone like, wish vicious harm on Lalo, right? Or like, Jimmy, should we all have been out on Jimmy after Chuck died? Like, you know, after we saw him do that, should have been like, he is reprehensible and there's no coming back from this. No, we understand they were watching like a tragic fall of a character or even someone we love like Mike. Mike does have this code. you're in the game or you're not and that determines what I do. But pop-op is still out there like Hill and Werner. You know what I mean? Like this is the world we live in. And I just have always found in this world that the bar is different for women than it is for men.

And that frustrates me. That being said, let's talk about consequences for Kim Wexler because obviously I don't think she should just, you know, right off into the sunset with a happy ending, right? So Stanley wrote in and talking about the possibility of Kim Wexler in Witzek and when is protection as a result of everything maybe like testifying about Lolo or something like that turning states evidence. I don't know. What do you think about that possibility? Does that feel like a satisfying consequence for Kim Wexler? It would account for where she goes that she's out of the way, obviously. I mean, the question I guess is how she gets to that point, how Lalo allows her

to get to the point. It would be, I guess, kind of rich for her to be the rat, right, that she warned Jimmy not to be or at least used that as a way to motivate him. So that would sort of be thematically appropriate. Like if she's not going to die. And I've got to say, I feel better about her not dying than I have maybe at any point up till now. Just because Nacho died. They killed Nacho. They killed Howard. It doesn't mean they can't kill Kim too. But I sort of get the feeling that there's going to be some other kind of consequence here. And it has to be more than just being disbarred, I think, at this point, probably, after Howard. So if that's the case, well, she could get disappeared, right?

She could go to the vacuum man. Or, yeah, maybe she turns over evidence. Maybe she ends up behind bars. All of those would account for why we don't see her in Breaking Bad, even if she is alive. So sort of like this theory, although it does require Lalo being a little less. competent and almost infallible than we were accustomed to him being. The other thing, we got this really interesting email from a listener, Todd, who was like, out the death of Howard Hamlin was a bridge too far for him, which was a surprising email for me

to read. I just feel like, he was like, this is the worst than the killing of Drew Sharp, but I'm like a literal child. Like, I don't know. And like, his question was like, what purpose of this serve? And I think we've already made a lengthy case for what purpose this serves here. Like, I do think that Howard's death isn't gratuitous. I think it was important that. it was someone we've been with this whole time and that Jimmy and Kim, if they have a scrap of any morality left in them, have to feel somewhat responsible for, right? But Todd Rodney said, Howard was married and his death would be widely noticed by powerful people. I just don't know how you write around such a huge plot points.

I don't think you're going to write around it. I believe that, you know, no, we're not constantly talking about the death of Howard Hamlin and Breaking Bad, but we've got six more episodes to go and I don't, you know, what are we to do with the body, all of that sort of stuff, I think, is going to be involved in the final stretch of Better Call Cell. I wonder how Howard's wife felt when she got the news. I hope she felt something for poor Howard's sake. She's like, who's going to make me lattes now?

Also, Cliff knows how the whole scheme worked, right? I think he believed Cliff at the end. He seemed to buy it or be somewhat persuaded or swayed. It doesn't matter. Yeah, it was too late. But I think he kind of bought it at that point. And maybe it was Howard's dilated pupils getting so undilated and getting dilated so quickly. That was not, I guess, the typical thing that would happen.

And maybe Cliff would know that. But when Howard dies immediately after that, Cliff would also know that Kim didn't show up at that meeting, right? Because he sent her there. So the whole thing is going to be sort of suspicious. And Cliff was Howard's friend. So you're promising me more screen time for Ed Bagley? junior. Yes. I hope so. Thank you. Yes, please. Cliff, Cliff, Cliff, main character. More like, um, okay, great. Let's hope that Cliff doesn't meet the same

hours end here. That might be a bridge too far. Wow. Okay. If that were to happen. Amazing. One last thing, two, two small things I want to say before we head out. One is, when we think about the ending of, you know, Andy's main complaint is that we know too much of what's going to happen, this being a prequel series, we know that Gus is going to live. We know that Mike's going to live. We know that ball a lot. You know, you know, You know, like, we know too much. And you and I have talked about actually, like, the delight in a prequel space of, like, we have the dread, the inevitable dread of Jimmy's going to be Saul or Kim's going to not be in his life. All that dread.

How is it going to happen? Similar to, like, we think Howard's going to die because we've seen a photo of Patrick Fabian with fake blood and his air. But how is it going to happen, you know? But I think one key element that might be missing is, like, who are, and you alluded to this, who are we rooting for in this? in this final stretch of the show. I don't always need someone to root for in a show necessarily. We talk about this a lot and we talk about succession. But we don't have a Jesse Pinkman.

Kim was kind of our Jesse Pinkman, I guess, for a lot of the show. We don't have a Jesse, right? There's no one, is it Cliff? No. I mean, there's no one who I'm like, oh, dear God, let them be okay. We don't have a baby Holly. Like, what are we, what are we, what are we lighting? Who are we letting Kim?

for, if not the corpse of Howard Hamlin. So again, you and I both have a lot of faith in these writers, but do you feel like that's a missing key element in this final stretch of Saul? I don't feel like Lalo's end or his arc is completely predictable. I know that, you know, we know that he's not going to succeed in exposing Gus, of course, but does that mean he's going to die? Not necessarily. And you wonder, what is Gene Tachovic in the future timeline so afraid of? I think we had a listener who wrote in to say, hey, Gus is dead and, you know, everyone's dead almost. And what is he afraid of? Is he afraid of just getting implicated in Walt's crimes?

Or is there someone still after him at that point? What we could potentially root for, I guess the question is, can these characters redeem themselves? Have they shown enough humanity and engendered enough sympathy over the previous five seasons that they can come back from this if they, they mend their ways, the problem is we know they don't mend their ways immediately, right? Because Jimmy slash Saul goes even further in that direction. Right. But if they pay some penance, like if Kim is just secluded somewhere, or if she's in prison, or if Gene, you know, he's had to relocate and it's years in the future and he's living all by himself and he's lost everything, is that enough to get us back on their side and root for them to come? And, you know, to come. And

come together in the end to have some sort of redemption, to not have it end the way that Walt did, because I do care more about Jimmy McGill than I cared about Walter White. Yeah. Feel worse for him and certainly for Kim than I did for Walt. So yeah, neither Jimmy or Kim are going to stand over Jane and watch her choke to death, right? That's not who they are. And, you know, they're not as haplessly complicit as Jesse Pinkman, I suppose, but they're not Walter White. either. And that's, you know, to Chris and Andy's conversation about like, is this a better show,

your mileage may vary, but it's certainly a murkier show. It's certainly a morally grayer show. And that's very interesting. And I hope that we do take a time leap because it's true. I don't know how much plot there is left in this present or in Breaking Bad's past timeline just because there aren't that many characters left and that many characters whose fates are in doubt. So I do hope that it's not just, you know, one last coda scene with Gene in the future. I hope that we are devoting maybe multiple episodes to that at least. So in that sense, I think there's potentially a lot of runway left because once you take that time leap, then all bets are off. So I'm looking forward to that. And look, we do a lot of theorizing and chamomile tea leaf reading here. And we will

continue to hopefully. But figuring out what's going to happen next, isn't what I most enjoy about this series or even about doing this podcast. I think I said in our first episode that I sort of accept that I can't outthink this creative team, which is devoting their lives and all of their waking hours to figuring out the plot of this show. It's more about fully appreciating it after the fact for me and just all of the layers that come to light of how they make these things happen, although I do have to take my quick partial victory laugh because the skateboarders right my theory was that the skate rats from season one were going to come back and that hit and run would be them making it look like

Howard hit them or something and on the insider pod they did discuss that they mentioned that that was an idea that they threw around in the room and I meant to give you points for that yeah I looked like Kim and Jimmy on the the Sandpiper conference call when I heard that I almost fistpumped It's sort of sad that I would count them even considering an idea before discarding it as a win for me in the prediction column. Take the win. Yeah, that's the standard they've set when it comes to predictability. But that's not what I'm here for necessarily to see what happens next. Like, that's a big part of it, obviously.

But it's appreciating the richness of the journey and looking back on how far we've come more so than looking forward. Because if we were perfect predictors and we nailed everything, then what fun would that be? for us or for our audience, right? We would be spoiling the episodes, basically. So I think we want to be in the dark a little bit. And it's been fun to be in the dark at times along with the characters sometimes this season. You made a wish for a time jump, and I want to wrap up with this. So we get this little post-credit stinger of Jimmy and Kim's apartment in the Gene Tachovic, black and white.

And Bob O'Kerke's voice saying, after all this, a happy ending, right? That's what he says. Yeah, yeah. Which is such an interesting thing to think about because, of course, we're sitting here thinking, as we just debated, do they deserve a happy ending after all this, right? Is that what we're even rooting for? We got a lot of emails about this Nebraska thing, which is not something that we talked about at length in last week's episode, but we did mention, which is the fact that we get this lingering shot of Kim's mom's license plate, which is in Nebraska. Kim is from Nebraska. Nebraska is where Gene Tachovic goes to work at the Cinnibon. So for a long time, people are like, oh my God, Jimmy has orchestrated all of this.

He's going to Nebraska on purpose so that he can reconnect with Kim. And that's definitely where she is and all those are stuff. I have never held fast to that theory at all because if you rewatch the scene where Jimmy goes to Robert Forster, the vacuum salesman to be disappeared, he shows Jimmy his new driver's license, which is Nebraska. And I'm going to play the clip of Bob O'N Kirk's line read here. What's in Nebraska? You. Everything good?

Define good. Now, could this team retcon that? Absolutely. They're very capable of that. But I think based on the fact that Jimmy slash Saul had no input in where he got to go. The vacuum salesman decides. He doesn't decide. So it's definitely not a plan.

Now, could we see Kim Wexler in her native land of Nebraska by random happen? stance in the mall, possibly. But I don't know. I mean, what do you think? Do you think it's just a coincidence? Like, what do you think of this Nebraska theory? It would be a weird coincidence, I guess. I understand why people are taking that leap.

And, yeah, I mean, maybe you don't get to have your pick of places to be disappeared to, right? Like, Jesse gets to go to Alaska where he wanted to go. But it doesn't seem that that's the case with Jimmy slash Saul here. And I don't know that Nebraska is somewhere that Kim would be. eager to return to. Doesn't seem like it. No.

She's from there. She still roots for the royals. She wears the royal shirts. But is she going back to see her mom? Is her mom even alive? Who knows, right? She doesn't have photos of her family or her mom or anyone else in the apartment, which was Ray Seahorn's choice because she feels like she cut off that side of herself.

She sort of separated her previous personal life. So I don't know that that is a connection that she feels strong. Like when things go wrong, she's going to run back to Nebraska where her happy memories of being left alone in a parking lot are, right? So I don't know that that makes sense either. Now, if they are going to have their paths cross, which I sort of hope they do at this point, well, we know that Gene is in Nebraska. So I guess it would have to happen there unless he takes a road trip. But maybe it's a misdirect like the Camomile T or anything else. Maybe we're supposed to come to that conclusion.

and maybe they made Kim be from Nebraska so that we would think that. And that that will turn out to be a red herring. We're going to be looking at the left hand. Then all of a sudden, the candle's going to gutter in the wind. And we're going to be like, oh, no, Lalo's here. Anyway. Okay, so this has been a supersized episode of this podcast. We went a little long, but listen, we don't know if we're going to talk about the show again.

So why not take the opportunity? Ben Lindberg, where can folks hear your fine opinions on any number of things? They can find me on Twitter at my name, Ben, Ben. Lindberg, I'll probably be popping up on the ringerverse pod with you and Mal. Obie one time. Which I will also be recapping and analyzing at the ringer along with other things. So that's where you can find me. And as Kevin the Mesa Verity bank boss said, we can't wait six weeks, but we must.

Hopefully we'll be back on the other side. All right. I'm Joanna Robb so you can find me over on the ringerverse talking with Ben about Ben Kenobi, my two favorite Ben's together at last. You can also find me. I can't Salonaka is my favorite person. You can also find me on the trial by content podcast and sort of all around the ringer network.

Huge shout out and thanks to our producer on this little mini season of Presti's TV, Chris Sutton. Thanks so much for all your fine work on this podcast. And hopefully we will see you in a couple weeks. But if not, our hearts and minds will be with you. And, you know, don't answer the door when the guy you scammed and drugged, knocked. How about that?

All right. We'll see you. We'll see you hopefully in the future. Bye. Hey. What the hell? This is only half. That's right.

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